STS 117 Mission

At today's Launch Readiness News Conference, the Mission Management Team announced that they were in agreement that Space Shuttle Atlantis is ready to fly on Friday.

"The team is ready to go and we're just really excited to be at this point after a very long and arduous spring and a lot of really hard work by the entire team," said LeRoy Cain, launch integration manager for the Space Shuttle Program. "I'm very proud of the team."

NASA Launch Director Mike Leinbach reported that the countdown is going fine and there no significant issues to report.

The forecast for launch day, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Pat Barrett, weather officer from the 45th squadron, remains at a 30-percent chance of violating launch constraints. A high-pressure ridge is expected to move to the north which could help clear out any thunderstorm activity over Kennedy Space Center.

At 10:30 p.m. EDT Thursday, the protective rotating service structure will be rolled away from the space shuttle. External tank fuel loading is scheduled to begin at around 9:30 a.m. EDT Friday.

The launch countdown for Atlantis officially began at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday, at T-43 hours. Included in the countdown is nearly 28 hours of built-in hold time prior to a targeted 7:38 p.m. EDT launch on Friday.

credit: NASA/Troy Cryder

Source: NASA